As a law firm owner, getting caught up in the day-to-day tasks and responsibilities of running your business can be all too easy — but that doesn’t mean you can successfully run your practice that way forever.
Instead of rushing through each day in a reactive, unstructured tizzy, rid yourself of the stressful monotony by introducing three strategic types of work days into your schedule. By doing this, you’ll be able to focus on different types of tasks for different days, thus ensuring that you won’t skip out on anything important.
Maximizing how you spend your time is crucial to your law firm’s success. We’re going to show you a proven strategy that will prevent burnout, accelerate growth, and keep you and your entire team on track.
1. Grow Days
Much like a garden, your business can’t grow if you’re not giving it the right nutrients. That’s why you need to make sure you’re dedicating “grow” days to the future of your law firm.
When you commit a day to business growth, you only allow yourself to focus on activities and initiatives that will set it up for success for years to come. This might involve tasks such as strategic think time, working on big marketing and brand initiatives, networking with mentors and like-minded peers, interviewing senior-level candidates, and developing new business strategies. All of these things create forward momentum and help keep your firm moving in the right direction.
Both new law firm owners and veteran law firm owners will benefit from business growth days as they always keep them excited and tied to a bigger purpose for their business. This helps relieve feelings of overwhelm, exhaustion, and defeat.
But what other benefits are there to focusing a whole day solely on business growth? How does that change things for good?
Take a closer look at a few key Grow Day activities:
Big Brand Initiatives
Planning big brand initiatives as a law firm owner involves developing and executing strategies to promote the firm’s brand and reputation, and that can be done in a number of different ways.
But before we go any further, what is a brand?
As marketing expert and best-selling author Seth Godin puts it, “a brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”
Your brand is who you are. It’s what you represent. It’s why people choose to come to your firm over any of the other thousands of options available.
That’s why brand is so important. You’ve got to respect it if you want it to mean something to you, your team, and your clients and potential clients.
This is all well and good, but what happens when your brand no longer resonates with your clients anymore? Is there a way for you to start looking at things differently?
Yes — and this is why it’s important to dedicate entire days to growing your business.
Before you go straight toward rebranding, think about what you want to change or do differently. Here are five major indicators that will tell you when it’s time to rebrand:
- Your core audience has changed or is rapidly changing. You are focusing on a totally different practice and the types of people you are servicing are vastly different.
- Your business model, core offering, or overall strategy has changed.
- The industry you are in is rapidly changing. If you think you have a lot of time left until non-lawyer firm ownership starts to shake things up, think again.
- Your business name is overly literal or you have general identity problems.
- You’ve outgrown your own brand.
This might include creating and implementing a fresh marketing plan, updating the firm’s website, embarking on a large branding project like a podcast or a book, or reaching out to potential clients in new ways. When planning big brand initiatives, you need to define each initiative’s goals, identify your target audience, develop a budget, create a plan, and implement and track everything you’ve done. Continue to compare and contrast and see what works best for your law firm.
Networking
Networking is an essential activity for law firm owners, as it allows them to build relationships with other professionals and expand their network of strategic contacts. Why would you settle for a small, mediocre network when you could have a lucrative, ever-growing one?
Business growth days can be an excellent time to attend networking events, meet with other like-minded law firm owners, interview senior-level candidates, or join industry organizations.
It’s vital to be proactive and to make an effort to build and maintain relationships with other leaders to set your law firm up for continual growth.
Make Necessary Changes
As a law firm owner, developing new business strategies involves creating plans and adjusting approaches to help grow and strengthen the business. This might involve analyzing the firm’s current business model and identifying areas for improvement or exploring new practice areas or markets that the firm could potentially expand into.
It could also mean updating your systems to new technologies and more efficient procedures to ensure everything is getting done on time.
Updating business systems and functions as a law firm owner involves reviewing and improving the systems and processes the firm uses to operate. Updating business systems and procedures can be an ongoing process, and it’s important for law firm owners to be proactive about identifying and addressing areas for improvement to keep their business running smoothly.
Don’t believe us? Take it from John Morgan, one of the most famous names in the legal industry. He knows that technology can both equip your law firm to expand its capabilities and threaten its very existence — and that’s why business growth days can help you figure out exactly what you need to do to keep your law firm on the cutting edge.
Seek Out New Opportunities
As a committed law firm owner, seeking out new opportunities is crucial to your success. Whether that includes looking for new potential partnerships, seeking out new clients, or exploring exciting new markets, your decisions must be oriented around growth.
That’s why having a day focused completely on growing your firm is one of the most important things you can do. Never stop learning and improving, always be open to new possibilities — and carve out time for yourself to make it happen.
2. Maintain Days
Having a day that prioritizes activities that maintain the business is important for law firm owners because it allows them to focus on the tasks necessary to keep the business running smoothly. If you like avoiding chaos, you’ll love prioritizing Maintain Days on your calendar.
By dedicating a specific day to tasks like data and content reviews, logistics, meetings, personal routines, and task items that need to be done regularly, law firm owners can stay organized and avoid falling behind on important responsibilities. This helps to create a sense of stability and security for the firm, which is particularly important for law firm owners who may feel overwhelmed by the demands of running a growing business.
Some of the tasks to do on Maintain Days include:
- Managing finances: This might involve tasks such as preparing and reviewing financial reports, paying bills, or tracking expenses.
- Handling paperwork: Maintain Days can be a good time to catch up on any paperwork that has been neglected, such as client files or contracts that require the owner’s attention.
- Data review: This involves reviewing and analyzing data related to the law firm and any key initiatives. Data reviews might include data about clients, such as the number of new clients acquired or the types of cases the firm is handling, as well as internal team progress, KPIs, and updates.
- Event logistics: involves planning and organizing events such as conferences, workshops, or networking events. This might include deciding on venues, transportation, registration, and budgets.
If you want a law firm that’s successful all the way around, you can’t let it run on autopilot. Dedicate specific days to taking care of all the “required” parts of maintaining a business.
3. Restore Days
Even the best in the business need time to work on themselves, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Are you taking the time to better yourself as a leader, team player, and person?
Restore Days dedicated to personal development are an important part of the week for any law firm owner who wants to remain competitive, stay engaged in their work, and maintain a healthy work-life integration. This can help you to stay up-to-date on industry trends, improve your skills and knowledge, and stay motivated and engaged in your work. These are days that prioritize activities that restore you and get you ready for your Grow and Maintain Days.
When you take the time to focus on your growth and development, it can help you feel more fulfilled and satisfied in your work, and that’s something that you can even bring home with you once you’re done for the day.
Law firm owners can do many different things on restore days. Some options might include the following:
Attend Conferences or Workshops
Attending law firm growth conferences or workshops gives you a structured outlet to meet new people, learn more about your industry, and get excited about bringing it all back to your firm.
Take the Game Changers Summit for example. It’s the #1 Law Firm Growth Conference on Earth, and in 2022, it truly lived up to its name by being held in the largest venue in Atlanta: the Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
With over 5,000 law firm owners in attendance, the energy was buzzing throughout the football stadium, and everyone had the chance to learn from top tier speakers such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Goggins, Cy Wakeman, Kevin O’Leary, and so many more. Attendees also had the opportunity to expand their referral networks with one another, something that they would certainly be able to bring back to their own firms at home.
Just in case you don’t believe us, take a look at what the attendees themselves had to say about this life-changing experience:
If these leaders hadn’t taken the time to attend the Summit, they wouldn’t have been able to live the experience needed to transform — and that’s why you need to prioritize transforming yourself with restore days as well.
Spend Time With Loved Ones
Every hardworking leader must take time to relax. It should be a non-negotiable in your life, and it’s important to remember to set time aside to spend time with your loved ones. Poor mental health is affecting people across the country, but those in the legal industry are getting hit with it harder than anticipated.
If you aren’t prioritizing your time, optimizing your calendar, delegating and automating tasks where you can, and investing in your firm’s growth, then you have no shot at spending a healthy amount of time with those you love while also putting your all into your career.
Step away from the computer. Put down your phone. Let your emails go unanswered for a while. Those things will all still be there when you get back.
Doing what you love and loving what you do is a balance, and though it may take some time to master, it’s essential to try to add in this kind of day to your week.
Work on Personal Projects
If you’re one of those people who thinks that they’ve got to pour every ounce of their soul into their business that they can’t do anything else, it’s time to change that. Restore Days can also be an excellent time to work on personal projects or hobbies that can help you to relax and recharge.
We all need a break: from technology, from people, and from our jobs. If you take the time to focus on a project that means something to you, you will begin to fill your cup in more ways than one.
Ultimately, the best use of Restore Days will depend on your specific goals and needs as a law firm owner and human being. Determine what’s important to you, and then make use of Restore Days to focus on those things.
These activities can help you to learn new things, gain new perspectives, and expose yourself to new ideas and opportunities. The important thing is to take time to focus on your growth and development as a person and a professional.
Final Thoughts
It’s important for law firm owners to balance different types of days in their week to be productive and effective in their work. The ideal mix depends on the season your business is in and what your goals are.
There’s no right or wrong way to plan out your week, but when you incorporate one or two or three of these days into your regular schedule, you’ll have a much better shot of focusing on the things that matter most and avoiding having priorities fall through the cracks.
If you want to master this growth strategy and countless others, then apply to join Crisp Coach, a closed-door community of the highest-performing law firms in the country. Network, grow, and transform alongside some of the brightest minds in the business — and get ready for some serious changes.
Think you’ve got what it takes? Apply today.
